Getting started, no idea where to begin

I have been doing embedded systems for a number of years across half a dozen different brands of uCs.

For the life of me I can not figure out where to being for the kinetis stuff.

So there is KDS, but now there is S32 which I assume is a rebrand of KDS but nowhere in the literature does it say so explicitly. So do I use S32 or KDS?

The examples for my KEA board are for code warrior, but then I read that codewarrior is no longer going to be updated for new kenetis, so I should not use code warrior while at the same time use code warrior?

Then there is processor expert but it looks like S32 integrates processor expert into it and yet again there is no explicit documentation that I have come across that says processor expert is integrated into S32.

No where in the documentation is there concrete documentation for CMSIS, I assume that it is not available and developers use processor expert instead?

Can someone tell me what is the best way to start? I have never been so lost, not even when I first started embedded systems.

The KEA devices are supported by CodeWarrior, KDS and S32 Design Studio. As you mention, CodeWarrior will no longer be updated for new Kinetis devices but it will continue supporting the current ones. Both KDS and the S32 Design Studio are free, but the S32 DS it is not a rebrand of KDS, it is a different IDE focused on supporting the Automotive MCUs while KDS supports only Kinetis MCUs. KDS comes with CMSIS compliant startup code.

With CodeWarrior and KDS you can create bareboard or Processor Expert projects for the KEA devices while the S32 Design Studio allows you to create bareboard projects and use the SDK Software Drivers (KEAZ128 and KEAZ64), it does not support Processor Expert.

So for someone new to kinetis but not new to embedded systems, what would be your recommendation for starting out in terms of software IDE and software tools?

Should I just forget about my KEA64 starter board and get a Freedom board instead? The freedom board is well priced and if that makes things starting out easier then I would be happy to get one of those.

If you are getting started then you could use CodeWarrior since there are several examples for the board you are using that could help you get familiar with the MCU or you can also use the S32 Design Studio and use the SDK example projects for the FRDM-KEAZ64 as reference to develop your application. There is no need to use a different development board.